Dutch designer Cindy van den Bremen says that before 1999 there was no
such thing as a sport hijab. She invented one almost 17 years ago when she
discovered a girl was being expelled from gym-class due to her supposedly
unsafe hijab. After working on four different sport hijab designs that were
recognized with a ‘Good Design Award’, Bremen launched Capsters brand in
2001.

She shares her thoughts with FashionUnited about modest fashion in
today’s world and Capsters’ journey from her decision to dive into the
sensitive matter of veiling to a company, that today empowers hijab-wearing
sports women and girls worldwide.

What was the idea behind launching a modest line of
clothing?

Cindy van den Bremen: During my graduation research at the Design
Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands, I stumbled upon the case of a girl
being expelled from gym-class. Her teacher thought that the hijab was not
safe and though her parents tried to solve the issue with the teacher and
the principal, they couldn’t reach a solution. The case was debated in the
court of law, where the girl even performed a roll over to show that the
hijab was safe for gym activities. But for the first time in the
Netherlands, hijab was forbidden in a gym-class due to safety reasons, if a
teacher was not comfortable letting girls wear one. As an alternative to
hijab, it was suggested that the girls could wear a swimming cap and a
turtleneck top.

I was amused at the solution offered and as a designer, decided to do
something about it. I couldn’t imagine girls wearing a swimming cap in a
gym class that could result in excessive sweating and a big red face. I
wanted to resolve the problem with a solution that would not only take care
of the safety issue, but also cater to the needs of those girls, who wished
to cover themselves.

Tell us more about yourself and the Capsters label. Its designs,
collections, retail presence and so on…

I have always been interested in other cultures and religions. Being
raised in a warm social humanist family, I related to minorities in my
country. The veil was a hot topic in the ‘90s due to a lot of discussions
surrounding it, in political circles and the society as a whole. A lot of
people in the Netherlands expressed their thoughts against the use of veil
in the western atmosphere. I didn’t understand how people could judge the
needs of others and decided to dive into the sensitive matter of
veiling.

During my graduation project, my research not only involved desk
research (where I read about the verses in the Quran that addressed the
veil and also the media coverage on the subject) but also did field
research. To my surprise, the voices in general (both media as well as
non-muslims) expressed that veiling was a way of oppressing women. But the
hijab-wearing women, I personally spoke to, were well educated, outspoken
and often very ambitious. And they were very convinced about their choice
of clothing, which they said was not forced by their father, brothers or
husband.

I decided to redesign the veil by integrating it more with the western
wardrobe, leaving less room for critique but making it part of the whole
identity and outfit. My teachers at the academy weren’t too thrilled about
this idea, so I continued my search for a more concrete problem with the
veil in order to design a solution.

I chose four different sports to design a sport hijab for. I looked at
the current sport fashion per sport: leading brands, materials, supplies,
colours etc. I started sketching and making styling overviews per sport.
Together with this I went back to the girls and women that I had spoken to
before. I asked them for feedback and comments. This is called co-design
where the users become part of the design process. Even today that’s how I
develop my designs for Capsters.

In June 1999, I became the inventor of the sport hijab by presenting the
four designs for my final graduation project. It became national news: in
papers, magazines, television and radio shows etc. I was invited to write
an article about the sport hijab for the ‘International Institute of the
Islam in a Modern World (ISIM)’, which published my piece internationally.
Underneath the article was my email address and through that address, I
began receiving orders.

Please elaborate on the journey of Capsters from its inception to the
present day....

I never had the intention to start a hijab business or company. I just
wanted to help this Dutch girl who was stopped from wearing hijab in
gym-class…but the hijab and sports appeared to be a universal issue. I
received mails from all over the world: a girl in Malaysia thanked me for
designing a tennis hijab specially for her since she had been playing
tennis her whole life and this was what she needed. A student at the
University of New York wrote: ‘with your designs I can show I’m willing to
integrate yet within my own norms and values’. This was exactly what I had
in mind when designing the sport hijabs!

I received orders from school principals, gym teachers, girls
themselves, and also their relatives who wanted to order a sport hijab for
their daughter, niece or cousin. So I thought, it would be good to approach
the big sport brands, I had worked with for my project, to include my sport
hijabs in their collection. One brand was enthusiastic, but thought I
should do it myself, and strongly recommended to remove the stripes. The
other big sport brand wanted to include the outdoor sport hijab that I made
of fleece, which looked like a hood and scarf in one, in their winter
collection.

Since I had four designs for sport hijabs, and I had orders for all of
them, I didn’t want just one of them to become a part of the winter sport
collection. So I decided to launch my own brand of sport hijabs called
Capsters. For years, I sold Capsters ‘on the side’. I run a social design
studio next to Capsters and started teaching at the faculty at Industrial
Design at the university in my hometown. There was little time to develop
Capsters. Nevertheless, orders kept coming, wholesale requests and the
ongoing free publicity continued and I still had so many ideas for new
designs. Every time the hijab was in the news, journalists would contact
me.

In 2008 the brand Capsters became a limited company which I founded
together with business partner Karin Mastenbroek. She is the Managing
Director, dealing with production, finances and resellers. I am the
Creative Director and face of the company, responsible for the new designs
and styles. Together we’ve been running the Capsters studio for the last
eight years.

Capsters received a Good Design Award in Japan and after the exhibition
‘Safe: Design Takes on Risk’ in 2006, the Capsters sport hijabs became part
of the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. I have
continued traveling the world from Saudi Arabia to Hong-Kong giving
lectures and presentations on my sport hijab design.

Is the label only available online? How do you plan to expand Capsters’
presence in the near future?

We hope to expand the brand in more retail stores worldwide that sell
the bigger sport brands so Capsters sport hijabs become more visible.

We sell in over 15 countries worldwide through a network of local
resellers and have daily orders on Capsters.com
from places like Brunei and Canada. We have local resellers online, but
also have brick and mortar shops like Sonee Sports in the Maldives that
sell Capsters sport hijabs.

Tell us more about the company's production capacity and various
collections created under the company’s umbrella.

After the launch of the brand in 2001, we presented the sports
collection with the first four designs. Later we expanded the Capsters
collection with a watersports line, a casual line and an exclusive line. We
now focus on sports hijabs basically, since that is still a niche. We
believe we offer the best quality and design in sport hijabs. We strive to
improve, and that is why we ask our fans and wearers for feedback and we
also work together with athletes and sport foundations to include more
women in sports.

What has been the consumer response and is it confined to consumers of
a particular faith?

Up till today we keep receiving positive feedback by Capsters fans and
wearers. They thank us for coming up with a comfortable alternative to
cover themselves during sport activities. Women that are not used to
wearing the comfortable designs of Capsters are often surprised: checking
whether their hijab is still on, and feeling the wind blowing through their
hair again, due to the lightweight mesh material, a sensation they haven’t
felt in years. Usually girls and women wear an undercover and a tight shawl
around their head, secured with pins or knots to keep the hijab in place.
Capsters offers a safe and comfortable alternative in a readymade fit in a
variety of designs and colors where no undercover, pins or knots are
needed.

What is the current turnover of Capsters? How do you aim to increase
sales? Where do you foresee Capsters five years down the line?

Sorry, we don’t talk numbers because we are still investing in our
company. We would like to expand with more presence in the retail world,
but in the west, hijab is still connected to a lot of negative
connotations.

There is a vast difference between faith and fashion. Fashion is said
to be consumerist but faith is in a way against consumerism. How does
modest fashion deal with this issue?

It is not only about consumerism, it is about participation and
inclusion like it is the case of sport hijabs. There is an urgency to deal
with the issue like the FIFA hijab ban that was issued for five years
preventing hijab-wearing women and girls to compete on the football/soccer
field.

In 2012 we worked together with Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein of Jordan,
vice president of FIFA and responsible for the development of (women’s)
football in Asia. We convinced the FIFA Medical Committee to lift their
five-year hijab ban on the football field by developing the safe Capsters
Football with a Velcro closing that releases quickly when pulled from
behind. This design has been tested and approved by Technical Institute TUV
in Germany. FIFA now recommends the Capsters Football as a solution to
wearing a safe hijab on the football field.

We are now supporting players like Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir and Indira Kaljo
in their fight to get the hijab ban lifted at the FIBA, international
Basketball Federation.

What do you think of the current state of modest fashion with a lot of
brands and designers getting into this segment?

When I started Capsters.com , there were
hardly any webshops online, let alone modest fashion webshops. I kept
receiving requests from girls and women who wanted advice on how to dress
modest yet fashionable. Due to widespread use of social media and the
Internet more and more information and ideas are being shared online.
Hijab-wearing fashion bloggers are providing updates and reports and even
tutorials on how to dress modest. I like the way in which the modest
fashion world is enabling growth of fusion fashion that addresses the
identity of these girls and women.

I have published a book on my research on veiling called ‘Hoofddoeken’
(hijabs in Dutch) and organized a traveling exhibition in the Netherlands:
through libraries and community centers. It showcased 25 pictures of the
book (by Iranian photographer Giti Entezami) accompanied with quotes, for a
month at different locations. I wrote articles on the matter and took part
in panel discussions. Often people thought I was a Muslim wearing a hijab
but my idea is just to prove that as a social designer you can provide
solutions and build bridges through design.

Where according to you is modest fashion headed with controversies
surrounding the attire vis-à-vis western brands creating dedicated modest
fashion collections?

The modest fashion market is an emerging and upcoming market you can’t
ignore. The bigger designer brands already have a presence in the Middle
East but also learn to cater more and more to the special needs and wishes
of the Muslim consumer and market besides ‘forcing’ a more western fashion
image upon them. Otherwise the Muslim consumer segment is an interesting
and growing market and it would be foolish to ignore this growing
market.

On the other hand, you get to see the development of emerging (local)
small modest fashion brands who are going global with the help of Modest
Fashion Weeks in Dubai, Istanbul, London and Indonesia through platforms
like Haute Elan, Bloggers & Vloggers and exclusive Modest Fashion Magazines
that provide the latest trends and styles in modest fashion offered by a
number of designer brands.

Anything else that you would like to add....

Put me on a stage and I can talk for hours on the hijab and the
development of the sport hijab. Still there are some challenges after being
in the business for over 16 years. Lot of girls and women worldwide are
facing barriers due to their hijab. Even though we’ve created a safe
alternative that has been tested and approved on safety, some sports
organisations continue to have rules and regulations that prevent
participation of Muslim women, who want to cover themselves.

One of the biggest arguments we hear against hijabs is that it oppresses
women but I feel, by excluding these women from sports activities because
they wear hijab, you are preventing them from fully participating in the
society and playing their part as a role model to inspire other less
fortunate girls. I think, a lot of work still needs to be done, to enable
hijab-wearing women to participate in sports of their choice. And Capsters
hopes to contribute to that!